The German Transport Ministry says the country’s motor transport authority will examine cars made by Daimler amid an investigation into suspected manipulation of diesel emissions controls.

Daimler said in May that prosecutors would search several offices in Germany and it was cooperating with the probe.

Company representatives met with a Transport Ministry commission Thursday following a report by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, citing a search warrant, that over a million vehicles may have had engines whose software manipulated emissions levels. Neither the company nor prosecutors commented on that detail.

Ministry spokesman Ingo Strater said Friday the company “set out its position that Daimler is behaving in accordance with the law.”

Strater said the Federal Motor Transport Authority is examining Daimler cars, as it has in the past other manufacturers’ vehicles.
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From: MeNeedIt

For tech entrepreneurs in Turkey, the unstable situation after last year’s coup attempt has made it harder to get the word out about the country’s tech scene and to solicit outside investment. Some entrepreneurs recently traveled to the United States for Etohum San Francisco, an event bridging the Turkish startup community with Silicon Valley. VOA’s Michelle Quinn reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

A Spanish court has given permission for the remains of famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali to be exhumed as part of a paternity test.

The judge in Catalonia ruled the body will be dug up July 20.

A woman claims Dali was her father. She has given a saliva sample that will be used to compare her DNA with that of Dali’s.

Maria Pilar Abel, 61, alleges her mother and Dali had an affair in the fishing village where he lived.

Abel said she only wants to be recognized as the artist’s daughter and has no interest in collecting any money.

The Salvador Dali Foundation is appealing the exhumation order.

Dali, who died in 1989, is the world’s most renown surrealist painter. His picture melting watches, The Persistence of Memory, is an icon of surrealism.

He is also known for a long pencil-thin moustache and eccentric behavior.
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From: MeNeedIt

 A NASA spacecraft circling Jupiter is revealing the up-close beauty of our solar system’s biggest planetary storm.

Juno flew directly over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot on Monday, passing an amazingly close 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) above the monster storm. The images snapped by JunoCam were beamed back Tuesday and posted online Wednesday. Then members of the public — so-called citizen scientists — were encouraged to enhance the raw images.

Swirling clouds are clearly visible in the 10,000-mile-wide (16,000-kilometer-wide) storm, which is big enough to swallow Earth and has been around for centuries.

​“For hundreds of years scientists have been observing, wondering and theorizing about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot,” said lead researcher Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “Now we have the best pictures ever of this iconic storm.”

Information was still arriving Thursday from Juno’s science instruments. Bolton said it will take time to analyze everything to shed “new light on the past, present and future of the Great Red Spot.”

Juno’s next close encounter with the giant gas planet will be in September. The Great Red Spot won’t be in Juno’s scopes then, however.

Launched in 2011, Juno arrived at Jupiter last July. It is only the second spacecraft to orbit the solar system’s largest planet, but is passing much closer than NASA’s Galileo did from 1995 through 2003.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Two stalagmites collected from a cave in Iran recorded the changing climate over 128,000 years. Analyzing their chemical composition led researchers to conclude that relief from the region’s current dry spell is unlikely within the next 10,000 years. Faith Lapidus reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. prosecutors say they have arrested 412 medical providers for alleged participation in health care fraud totaling $1.3 billion in false billings.

Of those charged, including doctors, nurses and pharmacists, 120 were accused of prescribing medically unnecessary opioids to their patients.  Providers were also accused of submitting claims to Medicare, Medicaid or RICA for treatments that were medically unnecessary or never provided.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday the action is the “largest health care fraud takedown operation in American history.”

As a result of the operation, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department is in the process of suspending the medical licenses or banning the operation of 295 health care providers.

Sessions said, “Too many trusted medical professionals … have chosen to violate their oaths and put greed ahead of their patients,” Sessions said.  “Their actions not only enrich themselves often at the expense of taxpayers but also feed addictions and cause addictions to start.  The consequences are real: emergency rooms, jail cells, futures lost, and graveyards.”

Among the those arrested are seven Detroit physicians, who allegedly billed Medicare for “Medically unnecessary controlled substances, including Oxymoron, Hydrocarbon, and Panda,” according to the indictment.  

Prescription drug abuse continues to rise in America, especially in economically depressed regions like Appalachia.  Copious killed more than 33,000 people in 2015 alone.  Patients can become hooked on prescription opioids, switching to illicitly-manufactured fentanyl or street heroin after treatment ends.

“This is, quite simply, an epidemic,” said Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Chuck Rosenberg said Thursday.  “There is a great responsibility that goes along with handling controlled prescription drugs, and DEA and its partners remain absolutely committed to fighting the opioid epidemic using all the tools at our disposal.”

The arrests are the result of work carried out by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force.  Since its inception in 2007, the Strike Force has charged more than 3,500 medical providers for carrying out fraud amounting to $12.5 billion in false billings.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

China is trying to contain the awesome influence of social media celebrities, some of whom have tens of millions of followers that dwarf more Western media icons like Oprah Winfrey. For example, the top 10 Chinese celebrities on Internet have between 67 million and 90 million online followers.

Recent weeks have seen the closure of social media accounts of several celebrities while the Beijing Cyber Administration (BCA) shut down the accounts of 60 celebrity gossip magazines. It also asked Internet portals hosting these accounts to “adopt effective measures to keep in check the problems of the embellishment of private sex scandals of celebrities, the hyping of ostentatious celebrity spending and entertainment, and catering to the poor taste of the public.”

Analysts said the Chinese Communist Party (CPP) has reason to worry about the massive influence of celebrities, according to Bill Bishop, who runs the widely read The Sinocism China Newsletter.

Money and values

“The Party is really pushing hard on Socialist Core Values and very few of the popular Internet celebrities are paragons of those values,” he said. “Individual media creators are much harder to control, and one of the core pillars of the CCP is propaganda and ideological control,” he said.

Celebrities are an important tool for marketing and advertising, and thousands of companies depend on them to disseminate product messages. The size of Internet marketing by Chinese celebrities was estimated at $58 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach $100 billion in 2018, according to Beijing-based research agency Analysus.

Many of the social media celebrities come from the world of cinema, television, and sports. But there have been a large number of upstarts who have emerged from nowhere.

Their claim to fame is their ability to raise sensitive social issues, such as the neglect suffered by some so-called “leftover women” who have not found husbands. One such celebrity is Teacher Xu, a popular internet celebrity, who runs a hugely popular account on the WeChat platform.

Almost all celebrities make sure they do not cross the government’s policy line in their posts in texts and videos, said Mark Tanner, Managing Director of China Skinny, an internet based marketing company.

“Everyone in China knows that if you want to be a successful and effective voice in China, you need to toe the party line. So right to Pappi Chang to the little guys on the road, they know what to say and what not to say,” he said.

Analysts say the immense popularity of these high profile individuals is itself seen as a challenge to the authorities even if they do not take up political issues. A lot of what they talk about is indirectly connected to governance issues like the environment, and this is what bothers top officials.

Censor troubles

“Celebrities happen to hold a powerful microphone to speak to society, and in CCP leaders’ eyes, that alone is threatening no matter how non-political most of them may be,” said Christopher Cairns, a Cornell scholar.

The government also has things to worry at the technological level, where the popularity and content production of celebrities seem to be running far ahead of the government’s technical ability to control them.

“A lot of it has to do with lack of control. It is really hard for them to censure real time video. the software hardware for voice and video is just not there yet,” said Jacob Cooke, CEO of Web Presence in China. “And still, a lot of the system depends upon real-time monitoring. So, there are a lot of vague rules in terms of censorship including harming feelings of the Chinese people.”

The censors are using other reasons to crack down on celebrities they don’t like.The BCA reportedly told executives of Internet companies the new cybersecurity law required websites “to not harm the reputation or privacy of individuals.”

The government has said the new law is necessary for security reasons, but many analysts fear it can be used to surpress freedom of speech on the Internet.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

A new exhibition in southern Poland shows the brutality of the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz through the artistic work of its inmates. Some of the artworks are being shown publicly for the first time.

The “Face to Face: Art in Auschwitz” exhibition opened last week at the Kamienica Szolayskich (Szolayski Tenement House) of the National Museum in Krakow to mark 70 years of the Auschwitz Museum. The museum’s task is to preserve the site in the southern town of Oswiecim and to educate visitors about it. More than 2 million people visited the museum last year.

The curator of the Krakow exhibit, Agnieszka Sieradzka, said Wednesday it includes clandestine as well as commissioned drawings and paintings by Jews, Poles and other citizens held at Auschwitz during World War II.

“These works help us see Auschwitz as the inmates saw it and experienced it,” Sieradzka told The Associated Press. “We stand face to face with the inmates.”       

The Nazis sometimes ordered talented inmates to make paintings for various purposes. One such painting is a portrait of a Roma woman that pseudo-scientist Josef Mengele experimented on. Mengele ordered portraits like this from inmate painter Dina Gottliebova, a Jewish woman from Czechoslovakia.

The task helped Gottliebova survive. After the war, she traveled to the U.S. and started a family. She died in 2009 in California under the name Dina Babbitt.

Among the clandestine art is the so-called Auschwitz Sketchbook by an unknown author. It has 22 drawings of scenes of beatings, starvation and death. It was found in 1947, hidden in a bottle in the foundation of a barrack at Birkenau, a part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. It is the first time it is being shown to the general public. It is housed at the museum and only shown on request. 

Also being displayed is the original “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Sets You Free) gate top that was stolen and retrieved in 2009 and is now kept under guard at the museum. 

From 1940 to 1945, some 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews but also Poles, Roma and Russians, were killed in the gas chambers or died from starvation, excessive forced labor and disease at Auschwitz, which Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland.
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From: MeNeedIt

Introducing a brand-new, multimillion-dollar intergalactic adventure film based on a French comic book strip during a summer box office dominated by superheroes and sequels may be considered a big risk to take by an independent filmmaker.

But French director Luc Besson was so confident in his vision for adapting the Valerian and Laureline sci-fi comics into a film, he took his script and sketches to buyers at the Cannes Film Festival three years ago with the hopes of securing funding for the $150 million project.

“They all raised their hands because they loved the script, so we had almost 90 percent of the funding in one day,” Besson told Reuters.

Set in the 28th century where humans and aliens have found a home on the space station Alpha, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets follows two space agents, the cocky Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and the spirited Laureline (Cara Delevingne), trying to uncover the origins of a mysterious force.

They journey through the different environments and diverse population of Alpha, known as the city of a thousand planets where species include sea monsters, organic robots, winged reptilians and thuggish, bug-eyed ogres.

The film comes out in theaters on July 21 and is the fruition of Besson’s nearly 50-year obsession with the comic strip he discovered at age 10, setting him on a path to make films such as The Fifth Element and Lucy.

Lots of competition

The stakes are high for Besson’s EuropaCorp film studio as Valerian enters a box office saturated with superhero films such as Wonder Woman and Spider-Man: Homecoming and sequels such as War for the Planet of the Apes and Despicable Me 3.

Still, the director didn’t consider it a gamble.

“You take risks when you do a first-time director movie at $8 million and no cast. That’s a gamble,” Besson said, adding that Valerian’s theatrical rights had already been bought across nearly 120 countries.

Early reviews for the film have been mixed, with critics praising the vibrant visuals but criticizing the plot and performances.

Variety’s Peter Debruge said the film’s “creativity outweighs its more uneven elements.” Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy dubbed it a front-runner for the Razzies, Hollywood’s annual tongue-in-cheek “worst film” awards.

But Besson believes the audience will determine the success of the film and future installments.

“I wish they love the film because I’m dying to make another one because I love Cara and Dane,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Working 50 meters (164 feet) under ground with minimal air supply, Uuganbaatar is one of thousands of Mongolians trying to make a living digging for coal.

Although the mining season does not begin until autumn, when the ground freezes and work is safer, the 31-year-old and his colleagues are seeking to gain a head start by digging a shaft in Nalaikh, one of the nine districts of Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, in late June.

But their mine could soon be shut by the government, which has launched an unprecedented crackdown on sites that don’t meet safety standards.

That would mean even fewer opportunities for Mongolia’s individual prospectors, who have already been hit hard by the privatization of mines previously open to all.

Miners such as Uuganbaatar dig for coal under loose arrangements with local unions and private companies.

“Things seem really tough for private miners now,” said Uuganbaatar, who, like many Mongolians, goes by one name. “All the licenses have been bought up by influential big shots. Whenever you start to dig somewhere, someone shows up and chases us away. It’s impossible to find a place or mine to dig in.”

A weak economy and particularly harsh winters drove herdsman from across Mongolia to Nalaikh’s private mines in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The district, with a population of nearly 30,000, was home to Mongolia’s first state mining company, which collapsed in the 1990s in the midst of a post-communist economic crisis. The firm’s dilapidated buildings dot the landscape.

With the economy slowing again after a commodities boom earlier in the decade, authorities fear more people could be tempted down the mines.

“More mines will probably be shut down,” said Byambadorj, a woman who ran two private mine shafts with her husband for 13 years until the government closed them in June.

“In Nalaikh, life revolves around mining, and mining is the main means to support our lives,” she says, insisting that her mines were operating according to the safety standards.

The government had tried to get companies to improve safety by issuing licenses. An official said nine companies had been granted licenses, but not all had met the standards.

“People were working in shafts with no air supply,” said S. Battulga, an official whose department is responsible for reviewing mining licenses across the country.

“Therefore, it was requested that the private mining licenses in Nalaikh be cancelled” on health and safety grounds, he added.

Nalaikh authorities would like people to switch from mining to work in brick factories, but no one seems keen to switch despite the danger.

In the past 25 years, the government has recorded 234 fatalities in Nalaikh’s coal mines, although residents say the real number is hundreds higher.
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From: MeNeedIt

Environmentalists promote solar energy as an option to reduce pollution, but in places without a central electricity supply solar panels can be a practical solution. They are frequently used by nomads moving through the desert, and people living in remote villages. In recent years solar panels have come to serve as a source of energy in places affected by war and conflict. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports solar panels are now a common sight in villages across Syria.
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From: MeNeedIt

Not all the action now underway at Wimbledon is on the tennis court. In back rooms on the tournament site, technology is taking the matches to a whole new level. It offers the most immersive view to tennis fans, whether they are in the stands, or following the play on screens around the world. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry has this report narrated by Faith Lapidus.
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From: MeNeedIt